One Special Moment — Jim Cymbala

A Family’s Desperate Prayer and Dedication

My mom and dad got married back in the 1930s, and they had my older brother. Then a couple years later, they had another son, but he died at birth. And then they tried to have another child, and they couldn't.

So month after month, year after year, there was no baby, and they got desperate. And they prayed, God, please give us, we don't want just one child, please give us another child. And then they prayed, God, if you give us another child, we dedicate him to you, or her, to you, before they're even born.

You're desperate. And then my mother conceived, and years after my brother was born, I came on the scene. Later, my sister was born, so they had three children. And my brother was a model child, went to Columbia University, was on the Dean's List, went to Erasmus Hall High School, like I did, was on the top academic list, never got in trouble.

I was somewhat different, caused a lot of trouble, was not a strong Christian in high school or in college, and today, I'm in the ministry. My brother and my sister both love God, but I'm the one. Certainly nothing in me, but something transacted, I have to believe, when my mom and dad said, we're desperate.

Israel’s Oppression and the Threat to the Hebrew Children

The first genocide against the Jewish people happened in Egypt, thousands and thousands of years ago. The Jews had come there, the Hebrew children, I should say, and prospered because Joseph was second to Pharaoh, and Joseph was one of the brothers, sons of Jacob.

But then, as time went on, people forgot about Joseph, and generation after generation, they were not a favorite people anymore, and Pharaoh looked at them and the leaders of Egypt and said, they're a threat.

They multiply, they're strong, they're intelligent. Make them slaves. We got to keep them under our heel. So they made them slaves, made them build, maybe, possibly, some of those tremendous monuments of antiquity that people still go and visit in Egypt, but they went further.

They were still prospering. The more you made them work, the more they multiplied. So then, somebody concocted this terrible idea of we have to kill all the male children. Let the women, girls, babies live, but kill the boys.

Moses in the Basket

And in the book of Exodus, it tells us that God's plan of deliverance for his people, which would be under a man by the name of Moses, happened this way. A Levite woman and a Levite man were married, and they had a baby, but the edict had been announced, and probably money was given to any Egyptian or any turncoat Hebrew who would say, I heard a baby crying.

I think it's a boy, and they would come and kill him. They would not just kill him. They would throw him in the Nile River, which was filled with all kinds of predatory animals. When the baby was born, a little boy, he had an older brother and an older sister.

He was fine-looking. There was something special about him, but they didn't know what to do. What can you do? You're slave. The Egyptian government is looking for all male babies, and when they find him, he's dead.

Do you get it? He's dead. Mother, you're gonna lose your son. Father, you're gonna lose your boy. He's dead, and there's no court. There's no Supreme Court. There's no district attorney's office. There's no court of appeals.

There's nothing. What Pharaoh says, Pharaoh does. So the Bible says, how they concocted this, I'll never know. But the mother and father got it into their head. We can't keep him because he's starting to make noise.

He cries. He's gonna be caught. We've tried to protect him, and they got desperate, and they took the baby, and they put him in a little ark made of reeds and papyrus, and they put the baby in it, and then they brought him to the very Nile River, which is where the kids were supposed to be killed.

You can't even make up this story. And the Bible says that the mother came with the older sister, Miriam, watching, and she put the ark in the water. The moment she took her hands off of that basket, all the powers of heaven began to work on behalf of that child.

As long as she was hiding the baby, that seems safer. Do the best you can. That's the way we live a lot of our lives. Do the best you can, hope it'll work out. But this was a desperate situation. They had to do desperate things.

So they actually took the baby and gave it over to death, because the Nile River was the symbol of where the children should be killed. And they brought the baby to the Nile River, full of fear and apprehension, and the moment they let their hands off of that ark, that little basket, orders were given by God.

Things began to happen. Suddenly, at that moment, Pharaoh's daughter says, I'm gonna take a bath. And she goes out in the Nile River. And she goes out there, she sees this little basket, and she hears a baby crying.

She goes over and looks at it, and says, this must be one of those Hebrew babies. But God put compassion on her, so that instead of dropping a dime on the baby and letting the baby be killed, she gathers the baby to herself.

And she says to her servant, I'm gonna keep this baby. I'm gonna raise this baby. But the daughter, older sister of the baby, has been watching all of this. And when she sees that she has a moment, she runs up to Pharaoh's daughter and says, excuse me, the baby's so young, and you're not a mother.

Would you like someone to nurse this baby? I think I know of a woman who would nurse this baby for you. The baby's mother. And Pharaoh's daughter says, that's a good idea. You know someone who would nurse this baby and take care?

Yeah, the young lady says, I know someone who will do it. Now back at the ranch, Moses' mom and dad are prostrate before God. When you put your baby in the Nile River in a little basket, you're not whistling Dixie, you're praying.

She takes the baby to bring the baby to the mother who has given up the baby. Never thought she would nurse the baby again. But before she leaves, Pharaoh's daughter says, oh by the way, before you take him, whoever was going to nurse her, whoever's going to nurse him, here's a bunch of money.

Pay her because she's really helping me out. So Moses' mother not only gets him back, she's paid to take care of him. Can we just put our hands together and thank God for the way he can work things out?

God’s Deliverance Begins When We Let Go

The end of the story is this. Moses is raised in Pharaoh's court. He's nursed by his own mom. God's hand is upon him and he eventually becomes the great deliverer, the great figure of the Old Testament.

And how did it begin? Like all stories begin, with a baby, with a helpless situation. But here's the point I want to make real to you today. Nothing could happen until they made the basket and took their hands off of it.

I don't know about you, but I've prayed about some things in my life and I put it in the Nile River and then as I leave, I take the basket back and I carry it with me because I just can't believe God's going to do the impossible.

And God is saying to us tonight, whatever you fully commit to me, I will take care of it, but you gotta let it go. Come on, can we say amen to that? You gotta let it go. That's the way it was with a lot of years ago with my oldest girl and my wife and I in that two and a half year long nightmare we had.

Releasing a Rebellious Daughter to God

Because she got so rebellious and so hard and so away from God and away from us. And brothers and sisters, look at me. I'm not much. I'm Polish. Polish, we keep working. We keep moving. We're not smart, but we keep going.

I tried everything. Look at me. You think I'm gonna let my oldest girl go down the drain? No, no, no, no. I tried money, manipulation, emotion, screaming, crying. I tried everything I knew how to do and I meant well.

And all the time I was doing it, she was getting worse by the day. And then God said to me at a certain moment, I won't go into the details, you gotta build a basket and you gotta give her to me. You gotta let me do it because as long as you touch it, I can't do what I want to do.

Because I'm not gonna share my glory with some father. I'm gonna get all the glory out of this situation. But it's got to get worse before it gets better. And you, listen, look at me. Do you think that was easy for me?

Because the Lord spoke to me and said, don't talk to her anymore. The next time you talk to her, I'll have changed her. And I talked to my daughter for five months. But the next time I talked to her, God had changed her.

Listen, whatever you put in the basket and let it go. You gotta let it go. As long as you're still struggling with it, as long as you're worrying about it, you gotta let it go. Close your eyes with me.

Entrusting Families, Finances, and Battles to God

Who here has a situation? Pastor, that word was for me tonight. Brief, but to the point. I need to put so-and-so in a basket. I need to put my son, my daughter, I need to put my finances in a basket.

Instead of worrying, struggling, fussing, fighting, I need to put my spiritual battle in that basket and let God fight for me. But as long as I'm struggling in my own strength, he can't do what he wants to do.

He won't do what he wants to do. You gotta get to the end before God begins. The end of ourselves. You gotta die to it, like Nile is a picture. They brought the baby to the place of death so the baby could live.

That's it. They brought the baby to the place of death so that the baby could live. Because that's when God stepped in. When we die to our own resources, God does things that are beyond what we could ask or think.

Building the Basket in Prayer

Real quick, I just want to say a prayer. But right now, if you're here tonight and you say, Pastor, I got something I gotta put in a basket. I've thought about it. God brought it to my attention while you were speaking.

While you were speaking, my heart began to burn a little bit because I said, I need that miracle. I need a Moses in the basket miracle. Just come out of your seat and stand here in the front. I don't care if two of you come or 200.

Just whoever wants to put something in a basket and let it go. From behind me, in front of me, doesn't matter. Everybody just pray. My house shall be called a house of prayer, God said. Because when you pray, I'll help you.

Therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and grace to help you in your time of need. Father God, we build our basket today. We build it carefully. We take our time. Not going to rush.

And we put our Moses into it. So helpless. So frail. Surrounded not only by the Egyptians, but surrounded by every crocodile in the Nile River, every poisonous snake. But we are not afraid. Because our God is greater.

Greater than our circumstances, greater than what we feel, greater than the negativity of the situation. Our God is greater than all of that. Our God is greater than everything that's against us. Sons and daughters, every kind of situation we put in the basket, Lord, and we let it go.

We take our hands off of it in Jesus name today. Either you're going to do it or it won't be done. But since you're going to do it, it will be done. We confess that we've been clogging up everything by our own self-efforts like I did all those years ago, Lord.

No more manipulation, no more self-effort, no more worrying, no more crying, no more screaming, no more anything. We know in whom we have believed and we are persuaded that he is able to keep that which we commit to him against that day.

So now, God, in the name of Christ, your son, we ask that the powers of heaven be released this very moment in our situations. We ask that angels be sent by the tens of thousands to help the people of God.

We ask that the Holy Spirit will begin to shape and move people's hearts. We believe that circumstances are going to begin to change. We believe you're going to send people into our situation to help us one way or another.

But you will do it, not us. You will do it. You will do it. You will do it and you will get all the glory and you will get all the praise and you will get all the honor because we're at the end of ourselves.

We build the ark and we let it go. The basket is now in the Nile River and now the next move is yours, God. And you're going to do it and you're going to do it because we're asking in the name of your son.

And your name will be glorified as you work on behalf of your people. Father God, we thank you for your word to us this afternoon, such a simple word. We thank you that when we let go of the little basket you begin to work on our behalf and you're doing it even now.

Even now you're beginning to work. We claim that by faith. We ask all blessings now to get us home safely in our beds tonight and remind us to praise you one last time before we go to sleep, Lord. Bind us together in love right now, we pray in Jesus name and everyone said and everyone said Let's give God one last hand clap of praise.

Come on, mas fuerte. Ladies hug about ten ladies. Come on, everyone hug someone and the man hug somebody.